This morning's P-I: "Election 2005: County elections office passes audit"
Unfortunately, the reporter failed to realize that the audit was so junky as to be meaningless. Kind of like the Arthur Anderson audit that Enron passed.
Keith Ervin at the Times had a more discerning article "Audit finds security lax in '04 King County election"
But this one line cracks me up:
Auditors found no evidence of fraud in what was the closest governor's race in state history, [lead auditor Ernie] Hawkins said.Of course he found no evidence of fraud, he didn't look for any. Councilmember Kathy Lambert and I both tried to get him to look at and offer his opinion on some stuff that looks an awful lot like fraud, but he refused to even look at it.
County election officials also have made "significant and noteworthy progress" in improving flaws that allowed invalid ballots to be counted and left valid ballots uncounted, Hawkins said.Hawkins would have no idea about any of this, as his team didn't examine a single ballot or envelope. He has no basis for judging the quality of the ballot processing.
I think the audit itself was a fraud.
UPDATE: The fraudulent audit (fraudit) report is posted here. As I predicted, the sleazebags who were supposed to have been audited but really weren't had already prepared self-congratulatory press releases (Logan and Sims).
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at October 04, 2005 10:01 AM | Email ThisOnly one of those is a comedy line.
Posted by: JCM on October 4, 2005 10:59 AMCounty election officials also have made "significant and noteworthy progress" in improving flaws that allowed invalid ballots to be counted and left valid ballots uncounted, Hawkins said.
When you "improve the flaws" you made the flaws better. If you improve the system, you eliminate or reduce the flaws.
Just a thought.
But seriously--what does the deafening silence of the Seattle papers, et al, tell us?
Do they just print what certain people tell them to print, or do they go out and find things that aren't right or that don't make sense, and research, and fact-check, and other journalism-type stuff? Of course, the rhetorical question has a clear answer.
It is clear that even one piece of evidence of election problems--yes, even ONE piece (and Stefan has found more that one)--is proof that these audits and reports and press releases are rhetorical propaganda. I should stop being dumbfounded, but I just can't drop my jaw any further than it is now without risking chin scrapes from the ground.
How do we get David Irons elected ?
Posted by: KS on October 4, 2005 09:22 PMTHIS ignored press release from the King County Council GOP Caucus may also be important.
Remember to vote for Heavy Iron on 8 November (early and often and make sure your will includes a ballot to vote from the grave like a DemocRAT)!!! Your state is counting on it!!!
Posted by: David Irons Supporter on October 5, 2005 01:55 PM